GRAPHIC designer Nial Smith has found fame after going viral on the internet with his Andy Murray posters.

But the shy 40-something artist would rather stay out of the spotlight.

Nial hit the headlines last week with his poster parodies of movies such as Crocodile Dundee, Gladiator and Trainspotting, which see Andy Murray, or Muzza as he likes to call him, at the centre of the action.

The series of Andy Murray posters is the latest in a long line of creative works by Nial, of Edinburgh, but he admits it’s his biggest yet.

He said: “I’m Scottish and someone like Andy will never come around again in my lifetime, so I thought I’d show what I thought of him on some posters.

“He’s a champion tennis player. I think he’s great and I sent my work to Judy Murray’s Facebook. It was only after she Tweeted it that everyone began talking about it and it’s now gone mad. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s been picked up all over the world.”

As someone who didn’t go to art college and left school at 18 to work in bars, Nial is a boy done good.

He was the bohemian in his family, with his sister Corrie Chiswell – also a creative talent – following an academic path, attending art college.

His ability became obvious after he was taught art in sixth form at Fettes public school by teacher and renowned artist John Brown.

Nial said: “If you have art in you, you don’t necessarily have to go to college or uni, not that I want to knock that route. In the 80s, there weren’t so many grants around and I didn’t really feel the need.”

As a free-spirited lad, he spent two years travelling and working in New Zealand, Australia and LA, adding: “When I came back, I became a bit of a travelling artist, drawing pub blackboards and travelling around Scotland and England for pub chains.

“I’d walk into places with my business card and ended up doing menus and murals in different theme bars.”

Nial built a reputation and became known as the Pub Picasso. He said: “I did that for about 10 years and in between I’d send off cartoons to publications like Private Eye and Punch. I got a lot of rejection notes, but a few of my cartoons were accepted by Private Eye.

“They were off-the-wall obscure ones, like a telephone that said ‘bring, bring, bring back my Bonnie to me’. That was in the Best of Private Eye around 1990 and I got about £75 for it.”

In his 30s, Nial decided it was time to get up to date with technology and he did a Photoshop course at Telford College in Edinburgh. He said: “It was a brief course and I’m pretty much self-taught but I realised that was the future for me. I began entering competitions for design work and won a few and now I run my own graphic design business, along with a web guy in Catalonia and a couple of freelancers designing brochures, websites and logos.”

Before the Murray mania, Nial had a few other design successes, albeit on a smaller scale. One of his original art installations was chosen by the organisers of Edinburgh’s Cow Parade in 1996.

He said: “I’d painted a skeleton cow for Mercat Tours Ghost Trails for the project, and then had an idea for a piece of art outside the galleries in Edinburgh. I pitched it to the Cow Parade company and they loved it.

“My idea for the statue of the Three Grazes made of fibreglass cows, based on the famed Three Graces, got a lot of publicity and the galleries loved it.”

The Andy Murray Crocodile Dunblane poster has had hundreds of thousands of views online but Nial has not made any money out of it.

He said: “It’s a not-for-profit project I thought I’d have some fun with and it’s really just helped to raise my profile.

“I am in contact with Judy Murray and she did tell me that Andy has had lots of questions about it in his press conferences. I think the Crocodile Dunblane moniker will stick, although he might no thank me. I’m a tennis fan so if Andy were to send me a VIP ticket to watch a game I’d definitely go.”